tjotala/weyland

Print Server to Control AxiDraw Pen Plotter

Introduction

This is HOWTO for building a wireless print server for a AxiDraw v3 pen plotter.

Hardware Parts

• Raspberry Pi Zero W system board
• Power Supply
• Micro-USB to USB OTG adapter; connect the pen plotter's USB cable
• MicroSD card; minimum 8GB
• (optional) Case

Preparing the MicroSD Card with the Raspberry Pi boot image

1. Download latest Raspbian Jessie ISO image

2. Write the ISO onto the MicroSD card

3. Configure the Raspberry Pi boot image to connect to your wireless network by creating a new text file named wpa_supplicant.conf in the /boot folder of the MicroSD card. Its contents should look something like this:

network={
    ssid="YourNetworkSSID"
    psk="Your Network's Passphrase"
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

4. Enable SSH access by creating an empty file named ssh in the /boot folder of the MicroSD card

(These steps are Mac OS)

touch /Volumes/boot/ssh

5. Unmount the MicroSD card and insert it into the Raspberry Pi

6. Connect the Raspberry Pi to a power supply

7. Find out the IP address of the Raspberry Pi. One way is to look at your WiFi access point to find the IP address of a device named "raspberrypi". Another way is to connect the Raspberry Pi to an HDMI display, keyboard and mouse and use the Pixel GUI to find out its IP address.

8. Copy your SSH key to the Raspberry Pi

brew install ssh-copy-id
ssh-copy-id pi@<ip_address>

9. Test the SSH login. You should not be prompted for the password.

ssh pi@<ip_address>
exit # from the SSH

Installing the Software on Raspberry Pi

These steps will finish the software installation onto the MicroSD now inserted in the Raspberry Pi.

1. Clone this github repo

cd <work_dir>
git clone [email protected]:tjotala/weyland.git
cd weyland

2. Install bundler

gem install bundler

3. Install all the required gems

cd <work_dir>/weyland
bundle install

4. Configure deployment to the target Raspberry Pi

nano config/deploy/staging.rb
# change IP address to match

5. Prepare the Raspberry Pi for deployment (only needs to be done once)

cap staging deploy:prepare

6. Deploy the code to the Raspberry Pi

cap staging deploy

7. Try the web UI by opening a browser window at http://<ip_address>:4242

8. Read the web API documentation public/weyland.conf with Swagger Editor: https://editor.swagger.io/

Installing the Software on a Mac OS X machine

These steps will let you run the software on a Mac OS X machine.

1. Install nginx

brew install nginx

2. Launch nginx (note this will not make it auto-launch at startup)

sudo nginx -c `pwd`/config/nginx.conf

3. Launch the print server

./bin/run_local.sh